In conventional voice mail systems, a voice mail server defines a mail box respectively for each telephone number, typically owned by or registered to a particular subscriber. When incoming calls to the telephone number are unanswered within a certain number of rings, they are directed to the voice mail server, allowing the caller to record a voice mail message for later retrieval by the subscriber.
A voice mail subscriber can typically access his or her voice mail box either from the telephone registered to the subscriber's telephone number or remotely from other telephones. Once the subscriber connects with his or her voice mail box, the subscriber may then manage the mail box, carrying out functions such as recording a personal greeting, reviewing message details (e.g., timestamps), listening to messages, and deleting messages.
In some instances, a person may wish to leave a voice mail message for another person without the need to call that other person's number. For example, if the other person is in a meeting or otherwise should not be disturbed with a phone call at the moment, it may be desirable to leave a voice mail message for the other person without actually calling the other person's number and causing the other person's phone to ring. To accommodate this desire, some voice mail systems allow a subscriber to generate and send a voice mail message from the subscriber's own voice mail box.
In particular, a subscriber may log into his or her own voice mail box and, through management prompts, may then opt to generate and send a voice mail message to a designated other subscriber. The voice mail system may then receive and record a voice mail message spoken by the subscriber and, responsive to the subscriber's request, may send the recorded voice mail message to the other subscriber's voice mail box for storage and later retrieval. A subscriber may use this process to generate and send a new voice mail message to another subscriber's mail box, perhaps as a reply to a voice mail message left by the other subscriber for the subscriber. Alternatively, a subscriber may use this process, perhaps without the recording step, to forward an existing voice mail message from the subscriber's voice mail box to the other subscriber's voice mail box.
Unfortunately, however, the ability to engage in mailbox-to-mailbox message transfers such as these can sidestep restrictions that may otherwise be in place regarding communications between subscribers. For instance, call processing restrictions may prevent a given subscriber from placing a voice call to another designated subscriber. Yet, with use of mailbox-to-mailbox transfer service, the given subscriber may nevertheless readily send a voice mail message to the other subscriber's mailbox. Therefore, an improvement is desired.